Ryan's budget: More of the same

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan presents another budget plan that favors the rich over the rest.Win McNamee/Getty Images

During last year’s presidential campaign, Rep. Paul Ryan often said that voters would render the final verdict on the Republican approach to the federal budget.

They did. He lost. And now he presents a plan that is crowded with the same regressive ideas as last year’s, which was endorsed by all six of New Jersey’s Republican members of Congress.

The cuts would again land mostly on the poor and middle class. Medicaid and food stamps, the two most important spending programs in combatting poverty, would be cut steeply and converted to block grants so that states would be on the hook for cleaning up the mess. Medicare would be converted to a voucher program, ending guaranteed coverage.

Ryan would scale back discretionary programs, which include everything from education and research to job training and college scholarships. But the man who is so often described as courageous punts on the specifics.

He would repeal the Wall Street reforms while offering nothing in their place, ensuring that consumers would lose their protections as the banks are given a green light to resume rapacious behaviors.

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He would restore the tough defense cuts enacted under sequestration, despite the fact that we spend more today on the military than Ronald Reagan did at the height of the Cold War, a colossal waste of money. And, of course, Ryan would reduce the top tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest families at a time when corporate profits and high-end incomes are skyrocketing.

Ryan, of Wisconsin, is among those who have given speeches about the need for Republicans to adjust in the wake of last year’s presidential defeat. They talk about changing the message and presentation, and perhaps tweaking policy on immigration.

But the problem goes deeper. This budget confirms, again, that the party’s first loyalty is to the wealthiest among us. Most Americans understand that, and polls show it is the key reason Mitt Romney lost last year.